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Monthly Archives: October 2018

CREEPY: Angelina Jolie is the mistress of all evil in Maleficent. SHE’S on the verge of turning 40, revered by many as one of the most stunningly beautiful women in the world, daughter of Hollywood royalty, hands-on humanitarian and an Academy Award winner.

Yes, it’s tough being Angelina Jolie. But she’s trying.

Jolie’s new film, Maleficent, is a family-friendly reworking of the classic Disney tale of Sleeping Beauty through the main viewpoint of Maleficent, the mistress of all evil.

As one of Disney’s most sinister villains, Angelina has the perfect look straight from the 1959 classic, although this time it is suggested she may have a bit of compassion for young Princess Aurora, who is under her nasty spell.

Having only watched again the original animated Sleeping Beauty recently, I was amazed how similar she is in features and voice, so it’s seems to be a perfect casting fit. Wings are an addition as well as other tweaks – young star Elle Fanning is captivating as Aurora within the dark labyrinth.

Enlightening, chilling, not too frightening, but dark enough for a Jolie scowl, the trailers have cinema-goers buzzing. It’s great to see actually as a reminder how versatile this great talent is.

Jolie has never been far from the spotlight. She married very young to Jonny Lee Miller (Trainspotting) – a co-star from one of her early films, Hackers. She stood out as further roles followed. Two early highlights were Playing God, as an undercover agent infiltrating a mobster but falling in love with David Duchovny’s disgraced doctor character during the sting. And, Gia, a made-for-television chronicle on a former fashion model affected with AIDS.

Jolie’s first Oscar, for best supporting actress, came for the 1999 drama Girl Interrupted. She was truly endearingly tragic as a psych patient opposite a grand cast including Winona Ryder, Brittany Murphy, Elizabeth Moss and Whoopie Goldberg.

It was a role which projected her into stardom and unfortunately led to Tomb Raider.

1999 was a big year for her, with a brilliant dark turn opposite Denzel Washington in The Bone Collector then a smaller film which flopped at the box office but just happened to star her next husband, Billy Bob Thornton. Pushing Tin was an oddball, mediocre comedy about drinking, quarrelling and swinging air traffic controllers that also featured John Cusack and Australia’s own Cate Blanchett.

Thornton was 10 years her senior and they married, reportedly swapping vials of each other’s blood. The spotlight was well and truly on them both when they amicably divorced with both their careers still flourishing.

Having made more movies than you may indeed think, Jolie continues to raise eyebrows in various projects of all kinds and of variable success.

❏Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow was an experimental box office failure, a high flying film with 90per cent special effects supposed to dazzle. Jolie rocked an eyepatch as a pilot glimmering across the screen more than any million dollar green-screen illusion.

❏Changeling, directed by Clint Eastwood, was a crushingly emotional story of a mother in the 1920s trying to locate her missing son without the help of a corrupt police department. It earned her a second Oscar nomination and reminded people of how incredibly intense her acting can be.

❏Life Or Something Like It was an under-appreciated gem. Sporting a blonde Marilyn Monroe-type bouffant, her news reporter character is told the end of her life is nigh. Triggering some unusual activities of dread incorporating romance, it’s a really good movie worth seeking out.

The awful Tomb Raider and Beowulf atrocities aside, action roles are a forte. She starred in Wanted, Salt (Salt 2 is in the works) and, of course, Mr & Mrs Smith, where she proved her skills in agile movements brandishing high-calibre weaponry.

Controversy surrounded her yet again on the Smith set. An affair with co-star Brad Pitt was reported and denied. Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston, while Jolie reassured she was not going to be part of any adultery situation. Exact details are unknown unless you believe the gossip magazines of the time but the rest is history. Brangelina was born.

The creepy, highly anticipated Maleficent is full of special effects and atmospheric sweeping emotions.

During the shooting of Maleficent, Jolie admitted to scaring little children on set in costume. It was only her daughter Vivienne who wasn’t quivering. Vivienne herself features as a young Princess Aurora.

From second billing to a robot in Cyborg 2, to cursing the spindle as Maleficent, the unique Angelina Jolie is only scratching the surface of her potential.

STILL ROCKING: Dave Faulkner says the Hoodoo Gurus’ performance at Splendour In The Grass will not just be chronological, but archaeological. He says the band have moved past the bad blood between them.DAVE Faulkner makes no qualms about it: the highly anticipated Splendour In The Grass performance by both past and present members of the Hoodoo Gurus is unlikely to ever happen again.

Frontman Faulkner and the band’s current members will perform a selection of their classics in chronological order and will be joined by former drummer James Baker and former bass guitarist Clyde Bramley – who left the band after the 1984 release of first album Stoneage Romeos and after touring for the third album Blow Your Cool respectively – to perform numbers from the lauded debut breakthrough and for an epic finale.

‘‘It won’t just be chronological, but archaeological!’’ Faulkner jokes.

‘‘There was a lot of bad blood, to be honest – it really hasn’t been possible until pretty much this year because we never really saw eye to eye about what went down.

‘‘We still haven’t talked about it, but it was a very long time ago – 30 years ago this year – that James left the band, so we finally moved past it and luckily we can go out and enjoy it once again.

‘‘It’s difficult to talk about it, it’s not like talking about ex-girlfriends or something, it’s different to that – you share a certain sort of unified bond that creates a certain music and obviously when you change that mix that changes the music you make as well, so it will be nice to see how those sounds sound with that dynamic again.’’

The performance will mark the latest chapter in the life of one of the country’s most enduring and inventive bands, who have created a legacy across three decades based on Faulkner’s distinctive voice and whippet smart sardonic lyrics over a progression of garage punk, rockabilly, power pop, psychedelic kitsch and hard-driving rock, earning them a spot in the ARIA Hall of Fame and continuing to garner invitations to headlining gigs.

But the fable could have had an early ending, when the band announced in 1997 it was breaking up.

‘‘We’re still going and so it was a necessary thing,’’ says Faulkner, who went on to release an album with his shortlived side project Antenna, which also featured Kim Salmon, Justin Frew and Stuart McCarthy.

‘‘When I started working with other musicians there was a lack of unity and binding and vision – the bond wasn’t there. But halfway through the recording and writing process with Antenna there was a strong chemical reaction where it wasn’t just the four of us as individuals in the room, it was like there was an overarching band identity that we were part of but at the same time was controlling us, we all seemed to know instinctively what was right, what was wrong without having to really discuss it.

‘‘I’d never seen that displayed so concretely because I’d been in the Hoodoo Gurus all those years and never realised it had happened in that band and it wasn’t until we played Homebake nearly four years after we broke up when I saw the Gurus through those eyes.’’

The festival will also host the Persian Rugs – comprising all four members of the Gurus – that also contributed the song Be My Guru to the Hoodoo Gurus’ tribute album Stoneage Cameos.

The jig was up.

‘‘I promised myself and everyone else that the band wouldn’t reform and I was trying to hold true to that, but I still had this feeling that there were these songs that I was writing that belonged to the Hoodoo Gurus, but I didn’t have the Hoodoo Gurus to play [the songs],’’ Faulkner says.

‘‘I finally had to get off my horse – the band was still alive, I just wasn’t letting it out of the house.’’

The band would go on to release two new albums, Mach Schau in 2004 and Purity of Essence in 2010, and continue to write and record for what Faulkner said was more likely to be an EP than an album in the near future.

They organised a series of concerts called Dig it Up! in April 2012 to celebrate 30 years since the release of their debut single.

They held a second and final round of Dig It Up! invitational concerts last year.

‘‘We’re just doing things that amuse us, it’s the same with gigs,’’ he said.

‘‘We’ve got some strange options at the table that are things we’ve never done before that are little wrinkles in the fabric of our existence – just things that excite us and reward us.’’

One such venture is Faulkner’s upcoming one-off performances at Lizotte’s, where he will be joined by Gurus guitarist Brad Shepherd not only to perform, but to share stories behind the songs spanning his career, talk about the music that has shaped his life and ‘‘pull a few rabbits out of the hat’’.

‘‘They’re all part of me, they’re splinters of my personality and my thoughts at the time that reflect me and how I approach things,’’ he says when asked about a love-hate relationship with songs including the best known What’s My Scene.

Others take on lives of their own, including 1000 Miles Away that has been touted as one of the great travelling songs but that Faulkner said is more about emotional distance.

It was adopted by the crew of Royal Australian Navy frigate HMAS Canberra II – and since then, the navy as a whole – after Faulkner mentioned in an interview that his father, Martin Faulkner, was a World War II veteran who had survived the sinking of HMAS Canberra I during the Battle of Savo Island.

The Gurus played the song in front of Faulkner’s father and on board the Canberra II during its last voyage out of Fremantle, prior to its decommissioning in 2005.

‘‘To see all these people who he understood from his experiences as a sailor himself relating to the music his son wrote was quite moving for him and for me, in converse, seeing my father’s world coming into my world was amazing too.’’

But for all his work with different bands – The Victims, The Manikins, The Gurus, Antenna and The Moops who later became Persian Rugs – the modest Faulkner says he is much less prolific a songwriter than widely assumed and often turns his sketches, riffs and ‘‘embryos’’ into songs only when there is an impending deadline.

‘‘Number one with any song you write is you want it to connect to people emotionally and also to have some sort of juice in it, to have flavour that people can enjoy and savour, not just take up space in their brain,’’ he says.

HIS departure wasn’t without a few barbs aimed squarely at his nemesis. Nor was he happy about having to go.

But Robert Henderson, who resigned on Wednesday night as chairman of Newcastle Art Gallery Foundation, was never going to go quietly.

The man pushed to the front line of the battle between the art gallery and Newcastle council said his outspoken ways during the Brett Whiteley sculpture fiasco had made him an enemy of the council’s hierarchy.

‘‘Clearly, my criticism … of the current council needed to be silenced,’’ he told 1233 ABC from Turkey on Thursday.

‘‘This is the way they found to do it,’’ he added, suggesting the council would not work with the foundation in future while ever he was chairman.

Mr Henderson was constantly at odds with council general manager Ken Gouldthorp and lord mayor Jeff McCloy throughout the Whiteley affair, and earlier when they stood down and later sacked gallery director Ron Ramsey along with his departmental manager Judy Jaeger over the mishandling of the art gallery expansion project.

Mr Henderson stood by them again on Thursday, but two independent reports don’t paint Mr Ramsey or Ms Jaeger in a good light. The second, released earlier this month, showed the pair had wrongfully authorised payments for massive cost blowouts in the expansion project and failed to notify bosses or the elected council.

In a statement issued late on Thursdaythe foundation confirmed Mr Henderson’s departure.

‘‘The directors of Newcastle Art Gallery Foundation accepted, with great regret, the resignation of its chairman Dr Robert Henderson,’’ the statement read.

‘‘They acknowledged his outstanding contribution to the foundation and the many achievements the foundation was able to realise during the time of his chairmanship.

‘‘Mrs Judy Hart has been appointed as acting chairman and Mr Bob Bishop acting vice chairman.

Mr Gouldthorp was not commenting on the matter. In a statement issued by the council, a spokesperson said ‘‘the position of chair of the foundation is a matter for the foundation board’’.

‘‘Council looks forward to working with all stakeholders including the Art Gallery Society, Art Gallery Foundation, local artists and education institutions to continue to grow our art and cultural offering,’’ it said.

Lord mayor Jeff McCloy said he had nothing to add, other than ‘‘I wish Robert Henderson the best, but we have to move the gallery forward’’.

NEWCASTLE Art Gallery Foundation president Robert Henderson has resigned, accusing Newcastle council of forcing his hand over the well-publicised Brett Whiteley sculpture fiasco.

The move follows almost 12 months of tensions between the foundation and council which came to a head in March when the council suspended and later sacked the gallery’s director Ron Ramsey and his departmental manager Judy Jaeger.

Earlier in February, the council suspended all transactions with the foundation – a fund-raising body attached to the gallery – after council general manager Ken Gouldthorp said the council had concerns about the Whiteley deal and its ‘‘compliance with Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Regulation 2013, taxation legislation, the Commonwealth Government’s Cultural Gift Program and the Foundation’s trust deed’’.

The foundation has confirmed that Mr Henderson is no longer its president.

Mr Henderson is currently holidaying in Turkey, but told ABC 1233 this morning that a gun had effectively been held at his head by the council.

He said the council had made it clear that it could not work with the foundation in the future while he was chairman, so he was forced to reluctantly resign.

‘‘If my position was being used as a reason (for the stand-off), then clearly I had to resign,’’ he said.

Mr Gouldthorp is not commenting on the matter. In a statement issued to the Herald, a council spokesperson said ‘‘the position of chair of the foundation is a matter for the foundation board’’.

‘‘A new exhibition will be opened at Newcastle Art Gallery on Friday evening focusing on pieces from the local collection and incorporating local artists,’’ the statement continued.

‘‘Council looks forward to working with all stakeholders including the Art Gallery Society, Art Gallery Foundation, local artists and education institutions to continue to grow our Art and Cultural offering.’’

CHEERS: Is red wine good for you or not? The people of Tuscany think so.THE secret of a long and healthy life is somewhere in these hills. Maria Pio Fusi looks out over the olive groves and vines owned by her son in the Chianti region of Tuscany and smiles.

‘‘Our doctors tell us to drink a little wine every day, one or two glasses for our health,’’ she says, as a pensioner in a place where life expectancy is among the highest in Europe. ‘‘Wine is the secret of life.’’

Scientists have agreed with this notion for the past 20 years, and even identified a miracle ingredient in red wine that makes people healthier. But now a paper has been published insisting that resveratrol – as it is called – actually has no effect at all.

‘‘Red wine will not make you live longer,’’ screamed one headline, only months after different scientists said it could help us live to 150. This is confusing enough to make anyone reach for the bottle. So which is true? Is red wine good for you or not?

Frankly, this is a matter close to my heart. As a lover of the stuff, I need to know as much as you probably do. I want to hear what the scientist who wrote that paper has to say for himself. I’m also prepared to pursue this story fearlessly and selflessly all the way to the source – even if it means travelling through a landscape of staggering beauty, among the rolling hills of Tuscany, to reach the little medieval market town of Greve in Chianti, south of Florence.

This is where Signora Fusi’s son owns a vineyard, with views down over the tumbling terracotta roofs of the town. They produce Chianti Classico, the deep and rich wine that makes your soul sing. The local olive oil is famously pure. The meat is wonderful. There are black and white truffles to be found and savoured. Small wonder that discerning researchers chose to come here to study the drinking habits and health of the older folk.

In 1998, they took urine samples from 783 men and women over the age of 65 in this town and a nearby village and examined them for levels of resveratrol. This is one of the natural chemicals found in the skin of the red grape and it is an antioxidant, which neutralises the oxygen molecules that damage human cells. The claims made for resveratrol have become increasingly bold in recent years – including that it can boost memory, arrest the failure of eyesight and hearing, lower cholesterol, restore muscle strength, reduce the signs of ageing and even prolong life. All of which makes it sound like the modern equivalent of Doctor Snakeoil’s Miraculous Cure-All Tonic.

But these claims are based on tests with mice. The team led by Professor Richard Semba of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore wanted to see the effects on humans, so they compared the urine samples with the results of a detailed health survey that the same pensioners took three times in nine years. They expected those with more resveratrol to live longer, suffer less inflammation and be less likely to suffer from cancer or heart disease.

‘‘We were expecting a connection because that is what you hear, that’s a lot of the hype,’’ says Semba. ‘‘But in retrospect it was a leap of faith to go from tests on mice and cellular models to expect an effect like this in humans. It was a complete wash, actually. There was no association.’’

Robert Corder, professor of experimental therapeutics at Queen Mary, University of London, is not at all surprised.

‘‘The levels of resveratrol in many red wines are often undetectable and negligible. ’’

Corder is the author of The Red Wine Diet, which sounds perfect to me, but the title is misleading.

‘‘I am a big fan of wine but I strongly advocate that you should drink less, of better quality.’’

He insists that the pips and not the skins of the grapes are the source of good health. Unfortunately, to get any benefit you need to be drinking wines fermented longer using traditional techniques and that are rich in tannins – and therefore a little too harsh for normal tastes: ‘‘Your average wine does not have enough flavonols in it to confer any kind of health benefit.’’

The other problem is that consumers have become so convinced that red wine is somehow medicinal that we are glugging back too much of it.

But what about the Italians? They drink far more wine than us per person and they also live longer. The answer is that they drink a little every day, rather than saving it all up for the weekend and going on a binge, says Corder. The London Sunday Telegraph

Pub history story Pictured John McCoy Licensee of the Hotel Bennett at Hamilton. Picture by DEAN OSLAND

Pictured historic photo of George Hotel in Newcastle just after the earthquake on the day of its demolition as a result of earthquake damage. Picture by DEAN OSLAND

Hotel Bennett at Hamilton. Picture by DEAN OSLAND

Pictured Hotel Bennett at Hamilton in pictured back in 1885 as the Tudor Hotel. Picture by DEAN OSLAND

Speers Point Hotel. Lake Macquarie Lake Macquarie life & times Commemorating 100 years of local government

TORONTO HOTEL 1924 Lake Macquarie Lake Macquarie life & times Commemorating 100 years of local government

Sea Breeze Hotel. Picture: Stephen Wark

Criterion Hotel, Wickham. Picture: Supplied

Miners Arms Hotel, Wallsend

Metropolitan Hotel , Wallsend, 1886

Kent Hotel Hamilton, 1924.

Imperial Hotel Cooks Hill, 1880’s

Figtrees Hotel Wallsend

Centenial Hotel

Aberdare Hotel Cessnock

Hotel toronto 1924

Criterion Hotel, Islington. 1983

Cricketers Arms Hotel, 1986

The Duke of Kent, Wolfe and Hunter street, 1976

Family Hotel, Newcastle

Grand Central Tavern , Maitland 1986

Kurri Kurri Hotel, 1973

Nobby’s Lighthouse, former Castle, 1984

Orient Hotel Watt street, damaged by fire, 1978

Royal Oak Hotel, Maitland

Shakey’s Hotel Wickham. 1983

Sportsmans Arms Hotel, Lambton, 1986

Town Hall Hotel, 1972

Blue Peter Hotel, Hunter street

Sulphide Hotel, Boolaroo

Broadway Hotel, Broadmeadow 1984

Caledonian Hotel, Singleton

Carlton Hotel, 1989, Zaara street

Carrington Club Hotel, 1970’s

Morisset Hotel,1908

Museum Hotel, West Wallsend, 1900.

Northern Star , Hamilton

Commercial Hotel , Morisset.

Eatons Hotel, Muswellbrook.

The Great Northern Hotel in Newcastle at the turn of last century.

Terminus Hotel Scott Street, Newcastle

The Yacht Club Hotel, Hunter Street

The Criterion Hotel was a landmark on the corner of Hunter street and Bolton street until 1956

The Crown and Anchor Hotel, Hunter & Perkins Sts

Beach Hotel in Watt Street Newcastle How quickly things change in inner Newcastle is graphically illustrated in the picture above.

Original Oriental Hotel in Carrington – built on site adjacent to present day hotel.

Hotel Rawson on the corner of Hunter and Newcomen streets.

Great Northern Hotel

Largs Hotel in 1936. Picture: SIMONE DE PEAK

Grand Hotel Newcastle

The Star Hotel in Newcastle

Fowler’s West End, in Hunter Street circa 1920s.

Hotel Pacific Newcastle

Killingworth Hotel October 1903

Criterion Hotel, Weston.

Great Northern Hotel

Hotels – Sunnyside Hotel Broadmeadow 1903

Stag and Hunter Hotel, Mayfield,1969.

The Duke of Edinburgh Hotel, The Junction, in 1901

The Terminus Hotel, Merewether

Largs Hotel in 1936

Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle, 1900-1910

Hotel Rawson on the corner of Hunter and Newcomen streets, it was demolished after its licence expired in 1964 and is now the site of the Commonwealth Bank.

Terminus Hotel, Scott Street, Newcastle.

The Yacht Club Hotel, Hunter Street, late 1800s

Criterion Hotel was a landmark on the corner of Hunter street and Bolton street until 1956.

Oriental Hotel in Carrington, 1898, on site adjacent to present day hotel.

The Great Northern Hotel in Newcastle circa 1900.

Eatons Hotel, Muswellbrook

The Black Diamond Hotel

TweetFacebookPubs where women ruled, gallery

LET’S front the bar today and toast the health of our favourite drinking haunts. Old Hunter hotels are everywhere around us, or at least they used to be. In fact, back in the 19th century, there seemed to be a public (drinking) house, or pub, on every street corner and often there was.

Today it’s a lot different. Most Newcastle/Lake Macquarie suburbs now seem to only have a couple of rubbidy-dubs.

But once, around 1900, there were a reported 149 pubs in Newcastle and colliery townships, like Hamilton and Wallsend. Inner-city Newcastle/Cooks Hill alone had 55 hotels. Many were real icons.

Then back about 1910, with hard-drinking miners following the opening of new mines up the Hunter, pub patronage began dropping. So, in May 1921 the Licences Reduction Board abruptly closed 23 city hotels. Later, in the early 1960s, more marginally profitable premises were suddenly de-licensed.

No one knows this better that Hunter historian Ed Tonks, of Charlestown.

He’s followed the changing fortunes of Hunter hotels for years and his ‘‘Pits and Pubs’’ tours around the Northern Coalfields are well known.

That’s why he’s taken such a great interest in one of the Newcastle Museum’s newest attractions at Honeysuckle. It’s a collection of 30 historic photographs entitled Our Pubs, showcasing familiar hotels from Newcastle to Boolaroo, Maitland, Kurri Kurri, Dungog and Vacy.

To highlight the display, Tonks was asked to host free ‘‘Ye Olde Pub Crawl’’ tours around the inner-city heart, inspecting some colourful, now often long-gone hotel sites.

‘‘My tour visits around 30 different city hotels sites,’’ Tonks said this week.

‘‘Looking closely at some sites, you learn there might have been up to three different pubs there over the years.

‘‘So what you really have, instead of 30 pubs, is really the history of 40 to 45 hotels.

‘‘My talks are much broader though than the museum pictures on show. Curator Julie Baird only selected some of about 60 pictures I was asked to caption. There’s enough for a second display.’’

The present exhibit is actually part of a 1959 collection of 178 pictures donated by brewers Tooth & Co to the museum. But more of that later.

Historian Tonks said the old, long vanished pubs still had relevance today because of their sometimes surprising past. ‘‘That’s why I love it. Take Merewether’s old Terminus Hotel as an example. Its licence was transferred to the Kent Hotel, in Beaumont Street, Hamilton, in 1924,’’ Tonks said.

‘‘Now, what’s interesting here is that this former hotel building still exists on [140] City Road, on the left going up the hill, but moved back about 10metres. It was physically relocated there decades ago for future road widening.

‘‘It looks completely unrecognisable now. The only old photo I’ve ever seen of it shows it with a wooden verandah, wrought iron panels with ads for ‘Woods’s New Beer’ to the left and right of the front doorway, behind the verandah posts.’’

The hotel started out as the Miners Rest in 1874. It was then listed as being in Railway Street close to the terminus of the steam tramway service from Newcastle.

Tonks said another interesting city pub was the former Golden Sands (now parkland directly opposite Newcastle Beach).

‘‘It opened as The Esplanade in 1937. Brewers Tooheys bought its licence from the old Newmarket Hotel, near the later Strand Theatre Street [now Market Square on Hunter Street Mall].

‘‘Then there’s Broadway’s Lambton Park Hotel, at Broadmeadow. The hotel was demolished after the 1989 earthquake, but its licence originally came in 1924 from the 1904 Glebe Colliery Hotel in Wilton Street, Merewether.

‘‘The Glebe Colliery Hotel though appears to have started life as the Newcastle Colliery Hotel in 1874. That name last appears in 1903.’’

Tonks said much of his hotel information came from Tooth & Co records held at the Noel Butlin Archives at the Australian National University in Canberra.

‘‘What’s there is a staggering resource; a ‘wow’ factor. Tooth’s new boss Carlton United Breweries didn’t want its collection and donated it. Tooths hotels and its competitors are on a comprehensive checklist system of yellow cards.

‘‘Photographs usually accompany each hotel listing as a record of its appearance. Taken by Tooth & Co reps, they cover each NSW town. It’s an invaluable record historically not only of old Hunter hotels, but for the state. And it’s bloody fascinating. But sometimes when a hotel closed, its licence just went into a general pool. Newcastle’s Rawson Hotel [the corner of Hunter and Newcomen streets] was one of about 20 licences we don’t know what happened to.’’

‘‘For example, when people discuss World War I, it’s often about Gallipoli. Early aviation is usually talking about Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.

‘‘When Newcastle pubs are mentioned it’s the Great Northern. It obviously deserves a guernsey, but not at the expense of all others.’’

‘‘Take the underrated former Duke of Kent Hotel on the corner of Hunter and Wolfe streets in the Hunter Mall. It’s of art deco design and just screams of having class.

‘‘And when people think of old, famous Newcastle architects, the name of Frederick Menkens comes up. But he was not the only architect ever working in Newcastle. Take the firm of Pitt and Merewether. Theirs was one of the most prolific architectural practices here and their range of designs equally as staggering.

‘‘They designed hotels like Stockton’s Boatrowers and Gladstone hotels, the Hamilton Hotel and the old Travellers Rest Hotel [now recycled as Hexham McDonalds] with its recessed verandah etc. Another interesting style is seen at the Crown & Anchor pub [complete with turret] in the inner city.’’

Tonks said people today forgot that popular 19th century pubs weren’t just watering holes, but ‘‘a community focus and a place for public meetings’’.

‘‘Coronial inquests were also once held at pubs, so many should have quite a lot of ghosts,’’ he joked.

‘‘And a meeting held at the [notorious] miners and sailor’s pub, the Black Diamond, once at Civic, help establish the Cooks Hill School in 1883. It was a real community thrust.

‘‘Oh yes, people have always had quite an affinity with pubs,’’ Tonks said.